Prayer Doesn’t Cover Laziness

What do you ask for in prayer?  That’s our topic this week at Alpine.  Our current serries “P.R.A.Y.” has challenged me in a lot of good ways.  One of the things that I like to do (and would challenge you to do) is, when we go through a teaching series, spend as much time as you can “digging deeper” on the subject we’re covering.  Read as much as you can, ask people about thier experiences with the topic, listen to other teachers on the same subject, etc.

As I’ve been doing that with the topic of prayer, I read a blog from Perry Nobel that said, “Covering laziness in prayer is not a spiritual discipline.” I knew immediately that I liked the statement, but felt like I wanted more of an explaination. So I dug a little deeper.

The gist of his article was “that many people in the Church use prayer as an excuse for inactivity and laziness.”

Now hear me… I’M ALL ABOUT PRAYER! Pray without ceasing. Pray about everything. I’ve seen Jesus do things amazing things through the power of prayer.  But,there are some things that we simply cannot “cover in prayer” and hope they will get better.  There are some things that prayer alone isn’t going to fix. Consider some of his examples:

• If you need to lose weight you’re not going to “pray the pounds away!” It’s just not going to happen!!! Believe me, I’ve tried. Sooner or later we have to get off the couch, put down the remote, stop slamming OREOS and start moving around a little bit!

• If your marriage is in trouble you’re not going to “pray it back into a great place.”  Men… you are going to have to turn off the t.v and start paying attention to your wife. (No… my wife didn’t tell me to write that… that was my idea.)  Ladies, stop comparing your husband to the fabulous men from your fiction romances. They’re FICTION!

• If you want your kids to admire and respect you it’s not going to happen through “just praying about it.” You are going to have to talk with them, spend time with them, sacrifice for them.  Be their parent, not their friend.

• If you’re broke, you’re not going to just “pray money into your bank account.” You’re going to have to put God first in your finances.

There are a ton more examples, but you get the point. Prayer is essential! Prayer is necessary! Prayer is commanded! Prayer is powerful; however, God did not just call us to PRAY about His will but also to PARTICIPATE in it.   Too many times Christians are willing to pray about things and think we’ve done our part…and then get angry at God because He didn’t do something amazing to compensate for our laziness and passivity.

Don’t just pray to God…but participate with God as He moves!

Join us on Sunday for the third week of our series “P.R.A.Y.”